1. Action Will Be Taken
   Left Anti-Intellectualism and Its Discontents
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2004
   Marxism's decline isn't just an intellectual concern -- it too has practical effects. If you lack any serious understanding of how capitalism works, then it's easy to delude yourself into thinking that moral appeals to the consciences of CEOs and finance ministers will have some effect. You might think that central banks' habit of provoking recessions when the unemployment rate gets too low is a policy based on a mere misunderstanding. You might think that structural adjustment and imperial war are just bad lifestyle choices.
2. The Activists' Handbook
   A Step-by-Step Guide to Participatory Democracy
   Resource Type: Book
   Published: 2012
   A guide to grassroots activism.
3. Against Activism
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2016
   "Activism" stands in contrast to organizing. Organizing aims to bring people together to build and exercise power, informed by a strategic vision for acquiring power and changing society. To be an "activist" now merely means to advocate for change, and the hows and whys of that advocacy are unclear. Activist is a generic category associated with oddly specific stereotypes: today, the term signals not so much a certain set of political opinions or behaviours as a certain temperament. Worse, many activists seem to relish their marginalization, interpreting their small numbers as evidence of their specialness, their membership in an exclusive and righteous clique, effectiveness be damned.
4. America's Social Arsonist
   Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century
   Resource Type: Book
   Published: 2016
   Gabriel Thompson provides a full picture of Fred Ross,this complicated and driven man, recovering a forgotten chapter of American history and providing vital lessons for organizers today.
5. Another Politics: Talking Across Today's Transformative Movements.
   Resource Type: Book
   Published: 2014
   Dixon examines the trajectory of efforts that contributed to the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and other recent movement upsurges. He presents the histories and principles that shape many contemporary struggles.
6. Connexions Library: Organizing Focus Page
   Resource Type: Website
   Selected articles from the Connexions Online Library.
7. Connexions Library: Radical and Left History Focus Page
   Resource Type: Website
   Published: 2012
   
8. Dangerous Grounds
   Antiwar Coffeehouses and Military Dissent in the Vietnam Era
   Resource Type: Book
   Published: 2017
   As the Vietnam War divided the nation, a network of antiwar coffeehouses appeared in the towns and cities outside American military bases. Owned and operated by civilian activists, GI coffeehouses served as off-base refuges for the growing number of active-duty soldiers resisting the war.
9. FBI harassing fossil fuel activists in the Pacific northwest
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2015
   A grassroots movement of eco-activists is achieving unprecedented success in challenging fossil fuel developments in the Cascadia region of the US's Pacific northwest, writes Alexander Reid Ross. And that has attracted the wrong kind of attention - from local police, FBI and right-wing legislators determined to protect the corporate right to exploit and pollute.
10. For Workers' Climate Action
    Climate Change and Working-Class Struggle
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2015
    A new collection of articles and reviews on the fight against dangerous climate change, capitalism and workers' organisation and struggle. Urges the left to reach out to climate activists to make the case that being "anti-capitalist" is important but not enough.
11. Get out there and organise
    The excitement of activism has supplanted slowly organized structures working for social and political change
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    While there has been an explosion of activism over the past couple of decades, the left must better cultivate organizing to make activism more sustainable and effective.
12. Happy Activism
    Six ways to make our movement strong and feed our spirit.
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    How do we make environmental organizations attractive to large numbers of people? And how do we keep these folks engaged for the years, even decades that it will take to create a sustainable society? My interest here is not to enumerate people’s reasons for activism but rather, based on these reasons, to articulate principles that movement organizers should follow to bring people to the cause.
13. Has the meaning of "organizing" been forgotten?
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2017
    Rising inequality, US anti-union laws crushing organized labour south of the boarder, and the slow unrelenting decline of union density here in Canada has renewed the focus on labour union organizing. The response from the leadership of the movement has been focused -- rightly -- on changes to law regulating labour unions that make it harder to organize. However, changing labour laws will not undo the slow decline in union density alone. Unions will also have to actually go out and talk to workers, sign them up, establish a local, bargain a first agreement, and enforce those terms.
14. Hegemony How-To
    A Roadmap for Radicals
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 2017
    Hegemony How-To is a practical guide to political struggle for a generation that is deeply ambivalent about questions of power, leadership, and strategy.
15. "Hegemony How-To": Rethinking Activism and Embracing Power
    A review of Hegemony How-To: a Roadmap for Radicals, by Jonathan Smucker
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2017
    "How many times, I wondered, had I favored a particular action or tactic because I really thought it was likely to change a decision-maker’s position or win over key allies, as opposed to gravitating toward an action because it expressed my activist identity and self-conception? How concerned were we really, in our practice, with political outcomes?"
16. How to create an ecological society
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2018
    A review of the book "Creating an Ecological Society: Towards A Revolutionary Transformation" by Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams, which addresses different aspects of the debate on the politics of the environment.
17. Ideas for the Struggle
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    A revision of Harnecker's 2004 collection of essays, examining the movements of the left and the challenges faced in organizing and furthering movements, edited for the US historical context.
18. Ideas for the Struggle: required reading for activists in these challenging times
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    Arguing why the ideas presented in Marta Harnecker's collection of essays, 'Ideas for the Struggle', are essential and important for present-day activists and organizers.
19. In the Tiger's Mouth
    An empowerment guide for social action
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 1994
    Information for ordinary people to become activists for social change.
20. Jackson Rising: At Last, a Real Strategic Plan
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2018
    Moser reviews Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi.
21. Keystone XL opponents need a jobs program
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2015
    The victorious Keystone campaign also exposed the perennial Achilles' heel of those who are fighting against climate change: We are often painted by our opponents and perceived by the public as caring more about the environment than about jobs. The neglected half of the job for environmental advocates is to ourselves become the voice for job creation. We need to develop robust programs to put unemployed pipefitters, teamsters, and others back to work. Indeed, the prerequisite for every environmental campaign should be a plausible and detailed jobs program. The sustainability movement must be a voice for workers, students, and others who want to both save the earth and promote appropriate economic development.
22. On Activism and Organizing: There is a Distinction
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    What's the difference between an organizer, an activist, and someone who is just plain fighting for their life, on a personal level? Often, there is no discernible distinction, as these roles often blend together in ways that could never be separated. But for some people, there is no such complexity. I point this out because, in recent years, there has been a verbal shift in social justice spaces towards referring to everyone involved as an organizer. As a person who believes that we too often negate the meanings of words by transforming them into umbrellaed concepts, I have to say my piece about the matter.
23. Organizing "The Organized"
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2014
    For many years, American unions have been trying to “organize of the unorganized” to offset, and, where possible, reverse their steady loss of dues-paying membership. In union circles, a distinction was often made between that "external organizing" – to recruit workers who currently lack collective bargaining rights – and "internal organizing," which involves engaging more members in contract fights and other forms of collective action aimed at strengthening existing bargaining units.
24. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - October 15, 2016
    Lurching to War
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2016
    The risk of nuclear war is as great now as it was at the height of the Cold War. From the time the Warsaw Pact dissolved itself and the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States has single-mindedly pursued a hyper-aggressive strategy of surrounding Russia with hostile military forces and missiles aimed at the Russian heartland.
25. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - March 12, 2015
    Organizing
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2015
    The focus of this issue is organizing. How can we challenge and overcome entrenched structures of economic and political power? Our own source of power is our latent ability to join together and work toward common goals, collectively. That requires organizing. Power gives way only when it is challenged by powerful movements for change, and movements grow out of organizing. In this newsletter, we feature a number of articles, books, and other organizing resources.
26. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - November 21, 2015
    Climate Change and Social Change
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2015
    This issue of Other Voices spotlights climate change, the escalating crisis that the upcoming Paris climate conference is supposed to address. But climate change is not a single problem: it is a product of an economic system whose driving force is the need to grow and accumulate. Nor does it affect everyone equally: those with wealth and power can buy themselves what they need to continue living comfortably for years to come - everything from air conditioning to food to police and soldiers to protect their secure bubbles - while those who are poor and powerless find their lives increasingly impossible. A serious effort to address climate change therefore means social change and economic change.
27. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - December 5, 2015
    Ecosocialism, environment, and urban gardening
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2015
    This issue of Other Voices covers a wide range of issues, from the climate crisis and the ecosocialist response, to terrorism and the struggle against religious fundamentalism, as well as items on urban gardening, the destruction of olive trees, and how the police are able to use Google's timeline feature to track you every move, now and years into the past.
28. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - December 19, 2015
    Utopia
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2015
    Utopian visions, be they practical or not, free our imaginations, if only for a little while, from the daily grind of struggle and worry, and allow us to dream about the kind of world we would hope to live in. Such dreams can inspire us and guide us, even if they are not always quite practical. This issue of Other Voices peers into the world of utopian visions, practical or otherwise.
29. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - January 16, 2016
    Working class organizing
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2016
    Working to change things for the better, fighting to prevent things from getting worse, remembering the past to illuminate possibilities for the future: as always, that is the focus of Other Voices. In this issue, we pay special attention to working class organizing. There can be no meaningful change without the active participation of the majority of the population: working people. Yet much activism ignores this obvious reality, while the organized labour union movement has put much of its reliance on 'professionals' who see organizing as a top-down technique rather than a grassroots movement. Several articles in this issue look at aspects of these issues. We also delve into the relationship between feminism and socialism, and look at the so-called 'sharing economy,' which produces increasingly exploited and precarious work, and immense profits for super-rich corporate owners.
30. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - May 7, 2016
    Tax Evasion
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2016
    Employing a network of accountants, tax lawyers, corporate shells, tax havens, secret bank accounts, and other methods, the 1% have become extremely adept at evading even the low rates of taxation they are subjected to.
31. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - July 23, 2016
    Workers and Climate Change
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2016
    Working people -- and most of us are workers -- are affected by climate change in every aspect of our lives. As climate change worsens, our lives will worsen. If we are successful in bringing about the needed rapid change away from a fossil fuel based economy, working people are the ones who stand to bear most of the costs, including the cost, for millions of workers and their families, of losing their jobs.
    Many elements of the environmental movement have been guilty of ignoring working people, while others actually blame ordinary working people for climate change and the injustices associated with it. Yet it is working people who are dying, in many places, even now, from excessive heat in factories, fields, construction sites, and homes. And million of working people stand to lose their jobs, homes, and communities in the transition to a low-carbon or no-carbon economy.
32. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - September 10, 2016
    Back to School
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    Education - about the world, and about social change in particular - is a key element in the work that Connexions does. In this issue of Other Voices, we explore a few aspects of the ways in which education and educational institutions are changing. We also look at ways in which education is used to bring about change.
33. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - December 20, 2016
    Fake News
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2016
    "Fake news" is the latest mania to convulse the mainstream media. All at once, we're being subjected to an outbreak of hand-wringing articles and commentary about obscure websites which are supposedly poisoning public opinion and undermining democracy by spreading "fake news." Since we don't like to be left out when a new fad comes on the scene, Other Voices is jumping on the bandwagon too, with this, our last issue of 2016, devoted to "fake news." Our focus, however, is not so much on the crackpots and trolls making mischief on the fringes, but on the dominant actors in the fake news business: governments and the corporate and state media.
34. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - March 18, 2017
    Public Transit
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 2017
    Public transit - good affordable public transit - is key to a liveable city. Around the world, there are movements of transit riders fighting for better public transit. A key perspective guiding many of these struggles is the idea that transit should be free, that is, paid for not by fares, but out of general revenues. This is how roads are normally funded: their construction and maintenance are paid for by taxes, rarely by user fees. Free public transit by itself would not be enough, however. We also need good transit, transit that runs frequently and goes where people want to go.
35. Principles of Organizing
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2017
    Explores the culture of organizing, the challenging and confusing dialectical tension that is every organizers terrain: change and continuity, the personal and the political, ideals and interests, planning and opportunity, and the transitions from evolutionary to revolutionary forms of unionism.
36. A Question of Place
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2000
    Global capitalism relentlessly displaces people and abandons places because it views local communities, cities, and even nations as inconveniences in the path of progress. Place-consciousness, on the other hand, encourages us to come together around common, local experiences and organize around our hopes for the future of our communities and cities. While global capitalism doesn't give a damn about the people or the natural environment of any particular place because it can always move on to other people and other places, place-based civic activism is concerned about the health and safety of people and places.
37. Quotes about Organizing
    Resource Type: Unclassified
    
38. Radical Digressions
    Resource Type: Website
    Published: 2017
    Ulli Diemer's website/blog featuring comment from a radical left-libertarian Marxist perspective.
    
39. Red Menace #1
    Volume 1, Number 1 - February 1976
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 1976
    The first issue of The Red Menace, a libertarian socialist newsletter.
40. The Rigors of Organizing: On the Road with the German Climate Resistance
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2019
    Ende Gelände, is a broad coalition of German climate resistance organizers. Members are touring the US sharing info about their tactics.
41. Seven News
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Published: 1970
    Seven News (7 News) was a community newspaper published in the area of Toronto east of downtown which at the time was known as Ward 7. Seven News was published from 1970 to 1985. Seven News is no longer publishing, but all issues of the paper have been scanned and are available on the Connexions website.
    Ward 7 covered the area of Toronto east of downtown, from Sherbourne Street to Logan Avenue, south of Bloor-Danforth, including Don Vale, Cabbagetown, Regent Park, Riverdale, St. Jamestown.
42. Single-Payer Health Care and the Case Against Clicktivism
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2015
    What’s the next step in the campaign for single-payer universal health care in the United States? Single Payer Now's Don Bechler says we have to hit the streets.
43. Social Activist Grace Lee Boggs on Shaking Up the Status Quo in America
    Resource Type: Film/Video
    Published: 2007
    Grace Lee Boggs has been a part of almost every major movement in the United States in the last 75 years, including: Labor, Civil Rights, Black Power, Women’s Rights and Environmental Justice.
44. Social Movements/Social Change
    The Politics and Practice of Organizing - Socialist Studies 4
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 1988
    This collection of essays covers movements related to labour, ecology, childcare, peace, disability, gay rights, and access to abortion.
45. Talking Back to the Right
    A guide for community activists
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 1996
    The right's enormous success in framing the American public debate is based not just on isolated issues, but on in overall definition of what the debate is about. The purpose of this guide is to suggest ways that progressive community-based advocacy groups can reframe the right's definition of the debate-ways that can connect with deeply-held Values and understandings of the American people. It is designed to help advocates frame their views for the media, develop educational programs and materials for their constituents, and talk to their fellow citizens in meetings and informal discussions.
46. Towards Workers' Climate Action
    Book review
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    A review of a book and a pamphlet by Paul Hampton, both on the urgent need for workers' action on climate change.
47. We can dream, or we can organize
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    The swift rise, and swift crumbling, of the Occupy movement brings to the surface the question of organization. Demonstrating our anger, and doing so with thousands of others in the streets, gives us energy and brings issues to wider audiences. Yes spontaneity, as necessary as it is, is far from sufficient in itself. For all the weeks and sometimes months that Occupy encampments lasted, little in the way of lasting organization was created and thus a correspondingly little ability to bring about any of the changes hoped for. Nor is social media a substitute for mass action.
48. Why Are Progressives Stupid? It's Not Too Late to Get Smart
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2017
    Many progressives are stupid. Unless they get smart soon, "The Resistance" to Donald Trump will fail, just like everything else the Left has tried to do for the last 40 years.
49. Why the Working Class?
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2016
    Workers are at the heart of the capitalist system. And that's why they are at the centre of socialist politics.
50. Workers and Trade Unions for Climate Solidarity
    Tackling climate change in a neoliberal world
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 2015
    Paul Hampton, a Marxist trade union researcher in Britain, addresses the role of workers in the climate justice movement, as well as the tasks of revolutionaries.

Experts on Organizing for Social Change in the Sources Directory

1. World Beyond War